Book Review: The Ocean At The End Of The Lane by Neil Gaiman

I enjoyed reading Neil’s American Gods so much that I wanted another book from him. I’m not a real huge fan of fantasies but Neil’s got me hooked and this book was no different.

What intrigued me first was the cover and how beautiful it was. It was calming and soothing and the “sinking” girl attracted my attention. The synopsis was also very convincingly good. Again, I’m not a fan of stories like these but there was something about the way Neil writes his work and the way his stories revolve around the reality of our world thru his fantasies that made me want to read his books more.

While I’m not exactly the type that would buy every book he has, I might well be caught glimpsing at the covers, looking at the synopsis, and maybe read a page or two to see if I can get hooked.

This novel was simply about how some things are seen better by children than adults. The central theme was the purity of innocence and how growing up corrupts our innocence in a way that forces our minds to remember certain things in a more practical and logical manner. What may seem magic to a kid might as well be a play on physics for an adult. What was once considered something amazing and miraculous would be remembered as something silly or simply outlandish in which we would tell ourselves “that must’ve been my wild imagination as a kid”.

Neil describes that a child, in all his innocence, may see what his heart wants him to see and this book literally portrays it as such. The protagonist sees, hears, and experiences things as a child that he cannot, rather, his not allowed to remember as an adult. Kids will always see the world as something magical and extraordinary but by the time they reach adulthood, the world has become something normal, something common, and worst of all: something real.

I’m not gonna drag this one. This book is worth the buy and the read. This book may have you feeling all sorts of emotions and may end up filling your mind with little bits of nostalgia.

Overall: 10/10

A very short but succinct novel about finding one’s self in a world where people fear things that shouldn’t be feared and don’t fear the things that they should be fearing.